Park Outing

We decided to get the girls out of the house the other night, so we took them to Dairy Twist and then we headed over to a nearby park. We had a great time until the bugs started to eat us alive (and of course I forgot the bug spray)! At that point, after screams of protest from Olivia, we thought we should head back home. Here are a few pictures we took of our evening of chicken nuggets, ice cream, merry-go-rounds, swings and lots and lots of bugs!

Note to self: Give child chocolate milk AFTER they have eaten their meal. I really should know this by now!
Abby giving a thumbs up for yummy lemonade
I don't even know what to say here.

Dinosaur Chicken Nuggets and fries... we like to feed our kids the very best food!

We took our ice cream to the park to eat. I shoud say THEY did. I was good and didn't get any. The girls did share a few bites with me though! This would have been a great picture if she would have smiled! Parks with sand are the worst!


Daddy and his girl Trying to get all three to smile always proves to be very difficult, especially when there are bugs swarming around you!


Would have been a cute picture if Liv didn't look so funny!
Me and my sweet Julia
Update: For those of you who have been waiting on pins and needles, wondering if the snakes scared away those horrible little birds, well so far it appears that they have! I still see them flying around our backyard but they don't swoop at our heads anymore and they haven't started rebuilding their nest. I'm not sure if it will work long term, but for now it seems to have scared them off.

Swimming Pool Fun!

I love having neighbors, especially neighbors with a pool! Since their boys are grown and no one uses it much, they were gracious and kind enough to offer to let us use it whenever we want and we sure have taken them up on that! We don't want to wear out our welcome, so I think this is it for the week. They have two beautiful dogs that love to swim in the pool as well, which the girls are just tickled by! Here's a few pics from our trip next door!

This is about as far as Olivia will venture in!

Liv having fun with Oak and Monet, the neighbors dogs The dogs going in for a swim

Kelby and MonetOak, the Weineramer . He's kinda standoffish at first, but he warms up after awhile. He has such pretty green eyes!
Abby jumping from the diving board ... I won't even do this, I'm such a chicken!
Julia getting ready to take the plunge
Julia says "This is the life" Abby working on her "tan" (Pale is the new tan, haven't you heard?)
"Don't hate me because of my beautiful naturally curly red hair!"
I'm not just a woman of leisure that sits by the pool all day, really I'm not! I do have laundry to do, clothes to iron, a dishwasher to unload and a pile of work to do for my part-time job. So I better get to it ... until next time!

Attack of the birds

So .... the cute little birds I blogged about a while back have decided that the entire backyard is their home. The girls (and their mommy too) are afraid to go outside because when they do the birds start swooping at their heads and come within inches. Here we have this wonderful new swingset but my girls are too afraid to play outside on it! After the baby birds flew away and this territorial behavior started, Kelby knocked down their nest before we left for Florida. Well, when we returned it was rebuilt so he knocked it down again and wouldn't you know it they started rebuilding again yesterday. So I decided to do a little research to get some ideas on how to stop birds from building nests and one of the sites said to put up fake snakes to scare them away. Needless to say, the girls and I took a little trip to Target in search of snakes. Here's hoping the birds get their eviction notice and move on!!!

Who knows what our neighbors must think seeing snakes hanging from our deck!

The only way Abby would go outside is with an umbrella to protect herself from the "mean birds"

"Help a snake!"Abby said I always post pictures of them but never of myself so she took this picture of me to post on my blog Stay tuned for reports on how the bird deterrent works out. If it doesn't, we just may need to invest in a bebe gun! I'm kidding ... sorta! :) Well, I better go get my run in before the rain starts!

Florida Vacation - Day 10

Well, we're back home now. No beds were made for us this morning, no fresh towels were layed out for us, no one cooked our meals and no one drove us to and from our destination. I guess we're back to reality.

We had a wonderful vacation! We enjoyed our time with Aunt Karen ... I think the girls especially had fun trying on all her high heels and their visit to the beach! We had a blast going jet skiing with my Uncle Dave and the girls loved meeting their second cousins and wished thet could have stayed over longer!

Disney World was magical! Even with the heat, the countless trips to the potty, the heat, the long lines, whining about the heat, 4pm rain showers, tired and sore feet and the sweltering heat! We had such a great time with Matt and Amanda and their kids as they joined us at the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. It was fun to see Olivia and Mackenzie get to know each other. We're looking forward to a family reunion next summer, hopefully!

Here are a few pictures from our last day in Florida ...

Julia going down the waterslide at our resort

Kelby and Olivia going down the waterslide. When they got to the bottom, they both went all they way under the water. Olivia was not happy ... she screamed! Needless to say, she didn't go down again

Abby going down the waterslide

Liv enjoying an Mickey Mouse ice cream sandwhich after a swim

Beautiful Florida Palm Trees

We had to make one last stop to Kelby and Grandpa Deese's favorite restaurant "Steak n Shake" before heading home (I also got my fill of Chic-fil-A while in Florida ... I really wish they had one here!)

Kelby driving all his girls home

Three tired girls, all zonked out, on their way home from the airport (Julia's face cracks me up!)

Florida Vacation - Day 9

Well, we were supposed to be on our way back home tonight but due to bad weather in Chicago our flight was delayed and instead of risking missing our connecting flight we opted to stay in Orlando one more night. We're praying for better weather tomorrow. Everyone is tired and ready to be back in their own beds and the girls are excited to see Mitzi (their dog) but it looks like we're going to have to wait one more day. So before we head out to find a place to eat I thought I'd add my pictures from our day in the Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom.

African Safari Cruise that took you through the jungle while wild animals roamed around



Abby enjoying a refreshing lemonade slush
We had just finished a very scary Dinosaur ride, not knowing it was going to be quite so intense. Olivia whimpered through much of it but to be honest she was more scared of the Disney characters than this ride! Me and Liv on the nice Dinosaur ride - she doesn't look too happy here but she really wanted to go on this!

Magic Kingdom Parade

Great picture Kelby took of the castle
Character Buffet Dinner with Winnie the Pooh and friends

We thought that since Liv is more familiar with the Pooh characters than Mickey Mouse she might not be as afraid this time ... no such luck. She was so petrified the whole dinner that she didn't eat one bite of food!


Liv has always loved Piglet so we though she just might warm up to him ...
Nope ... she freaked when she saw him. He was so sweet to her, blowing her kisses, but nothing worked. Our nice meal with Winnie the Pooh and friends turned out to be a traumatic experience for poor Olivia
After Liv's traumatic dinner we went on the train ride around the Magic Kingdom
This was just the cutest thing ... there was this little tree house for kids to play in and Piglet was up at the top, popping out of the tree. Livvy was so concerned for him. She talked all day, from the very first day we were at the Magic Kindom about how we were going to get Piglet out because he was stuck. She wanted her daddy to get a rope and ladder and rescue him. She's still talking about it today!
SpectraMagic Parade ... no matter how old you are it is still so magical!
Watching the parade from a front row seat
She waved at all the Disney characters, even the Big Bad Wolf. I guess if they are a safe distance from her, their not so bad!
Taking the boat back to our resort to watch the firework show